The economy might be tanking, and Wall Street is on the brink of hysteria, but none of that dampens the enthusiasm—that is, the crazed, rabid, evangelical fervor—of television pitchman Billy Mays.
And why should it? The bearded, barrel-chested Mays (whose mantra could be A.B.P., as in "Always Be Pitching!") has gotten rich from his only-in-America career as an inescapable presence on broadcast and cable. Part confidence man, part carnival barker, he is shouting in every media market in the United States, to say nothing of 57 countries around the world, hawking household products ranging from Mighty Putty (a gloppy adhesive) to Samurai Shark (a knife-sharpening tool). It's no wonder that the 50-year-old Mays will soon be starring in his own reality show, Pitchmen, now in production for the Discovery Channel.
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In an exclusive interview with Portfolio.com, Mays argues that the possibly approaching recession is even good for his business (already a $150 billion industry by some estimates), encouraging cash-strapped Americans to choose cheap do-it-yourself fixes at home instead of hiring professionals, and repairing smashed crockery instead of buying anew.
Lloyd Grove: You obviously made it back from New Jersey okay.
Billy Mays: Barely. I had a little complication, but I'm hurting a little bit. I don't know what happened, but I'll see the doctor on Thursday.
L.G.: What did you hurt—your hip?
B.M.: The hip is fine. It's just the muscles around it—they go on guard. Doing a lot of walking on it, they get real spasmed up around my butt and my front and my pelvis, my thigh. Just got off the phone with the doctor. He said that's your natural defenses when you push it—you know, I was walking through the airport a lot, had a long day of shooting. But I think it's fine, I just feel it's muscle pain, which is fine. Just going to a little rehab the next couple days, then see him on Thursday.
L.G.: It would be nice for somebody to come up with a product for guys our age—my back has been killing me—and then you can get on television and pitch it.
B.M.: I would love to do that.
L.G.: I noticed that in 2004, articles about the infomercial industry said that it was about $150 billion of products sold through infomercials. Do you have any sense of what the scope of it is today?
B.M.: I really don't keep on the actual number, but if that number's right, Lloyd, it's certainly increased. I think the business has been legitimized. A lot of people still have their doubts about it, but let's face it, everything that comes out of my mouth has to be approved. We have to have documentation. Every demo [demonstration] has to work, and so there's a lot of legal work going into it. I think the numbers really don't lie. Talk about the infomercial, you're talking about everything from Chuck Norris to all the health-care stuff, all the beauty care, beauty lines, I mean, geez, we're talking about scooters, hub-arounds, they've all gone D.R. [direct response]. We have insurance now, ICanBenefit.com, which has been massive for me—you know, getting people affordable health insurance. Reverse mortgages. Premiere bathtubs. So that all falls under the spectrum of infomercials.
L.G.: Do you think there are some products that just can't be effectively sold via infomercial or can you sell pretty much any product?
B.M.: Well, first of all, if there's a need for it. There's a couple different ways to skin a cat there: Either it's going to be $10, $15, $20 on the two-minute spots, short form, or you're going to have an offer at the end where people are going to call in. Then you have 15 to 30 seconds that I do with OxiClean and Kaboom, which were already branded and in the stores. So they're image spots, and we drive them right to retail. And then you have the half-hour infomercial, which will actually give you a lot more time to ask for a lot more money. I feel that the magic number on the infomercial, the two-minute spots, it's kind of hard to get past $20. That seems to be the magic number. Or $19.95. The best things in life are free and $19.95. [Chuckles.]
So there's a lot of free offers out there, try it for free. David Oreck has done a fantastic job as far as his vacuum cleaners, you know. He's built an empire, and it's built on trust. I don't know him personally, but I've read about him and I like how he approaches the infomercial. "Try the product and if you're not 100 percent satisfied, send it back, and we'll not only ship it to you for free but we'll pay to have it shipped back for free, so you have nothing to lose." There's some really compelling stories out there. Of course, all the products I sell have a "Billy-back" guarantee, a money-back guarantee.
L.G.: But not shipping?
B.M.: Some of them, the $10 ones, the $20 ones, a few of them, we do. But especially with the presidential campaign and the Olympics, advertising time is such a high premium right now, that it's almost impossible to ship it to you and have you ship it back for free. Oreck will not only ship it to you free, he'll ship it back to you free. He has a bigger markup, he's at $300 to $400.
L.G.: ICanBenefit.com—is that the most expensive product you're currently pitching?
B.M.: ICanBenefit.com, it's a different type of show. It's one to two minutes—I don't know if you've seen it. Basically it's, Hi, Billy Mays here, to share with you the most important product I've ever endorsed, affordable health insurance for everyone. If you're one of the 47 million uninsured, we can help.
L.G.: I assume that you've ratcheted back to save your voice. But you don't pitch that product with any less intensity that you pitch other products, do you?
B.M.: Oh no, my voice is a little sore right now from yesterday. [Louder, more rabid] Hi, Billy Mays here to share with you the most important product I've ever endorsed! And I'll even be a couple notches up from that.
L.G.: Sign me up, man!
B.M.: [Laughs.] Health insurance is such a hot button in the election, we're signing people up every day. It's a legitimate company—you can get major med, mini med, we cater it to your needs for hospital visits, blood tests, checkups, emergency room, you can spend as little as $159 a month for you or $269 a month for your entire family. Now, if you want to get into the Blue Cross Blue Shield, that type of program, of course it's going to cost you a little bit more. But the main thing is to have some type of coverage for catastrophic and things like that. From that forum, we're going to eventually take it to auto insurance. We're going to take it basically as an association. The commercial is kind of not deceiving, but when you actually call in and get signed up for a month, the first month, you get a package that gives you roadside assistance from Allstate—identity theft, legal advice, you get so much off toward that. There's a whole array of things that we offer you in this—how to improve your credit score, counseling, consulting.
L.G.: With the Billy Mays business model, do you pretty much participate in all the products that you're pitching?
B.M.: Oh, absolutely.
L.G.: So you're really part of these companies, it's not like you're some kind of gun for hire. From what I've read, you take an up-front fee of 20 grand for doing the commercials, and then you have participation, commissions?
B.M.: Yeah, there's some certainty up front, and 20 is a number that got thrown around. I mean, more or less. But it's about the back end, it's about getting a percentage. If it came down to it, I would rather just have the percentage, because I don't do the products to get that $20,000 or whatever it may be up front. These are businesses of mine that I want to brand. I have at least 10 campaigns running in alternation right now.
L.G.: Are you in every media market in the United States?
B.M.: Every media market, yes.
L.G.: And are you also beyond the United States?
B.M.: Worldwide, I speak 57 languages.
L.G.: Oh, you do not!
B.M.: Yeah, they dub it in.
L.G.: So do they have some guy in Japanese screaming? Have you heard those commercials? Do they capture your spirit?
B.M.: Some of them do. They're getting better. A lot of the Spanish and Mexican markets, I'm really strong in. I was just in the Chicago airport the other day, and a guy sitting next to me, he says "I can't get away from you, you are the biggest celebrity in Spain. Your Orange Glo commercial runs every 10 to 15 minutes on every other channel."
L.G.: Do you speak any foreign languages yourself?
B.M.: Hablo español poquito. No. I did a couple of spots with Simonizer where they let me do part of it, writing out the dialect of it so that I can actually pronounce it, "Oy me, I'm Billy Mays," then I'd say something, then we have a voiceover coming in, then I got "solamente veinte dolares" at the end—and that goes a long way to the Spanish and Mexican market. You know, butcher their language a little bit—they respect it. I started in the state fair's home shows, flea markets in L.A. I started on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. I used to sell a salsa maker in places in L.A. when I was out there, and nobody spoke English. I just would make salsa and sell it: tomate, pimiento, chile rojo, ajo and the garlic, limón and sal, pico de gallo, and then I'd make it. Eat! Eat! Then get it on TV. Boom! Solamente veinte dolares! And they just take money all day long. Someone in the crowd always spoke some type of English, but I would be the heart of it.
L.G.: What makes a good pitchman?
B.M.: I've been doing this on TV almost 11 years and I've never changed. I think it's the consistency. You've got to stay true to what you do, you've got to really be humble and you've got to believe in the products you sell, you really do. Product is king, product is king. I turn down more products than you can imagine, I don't even look at them.
L.G.: Give me an example of some of the products that have come over the transom that you thought were not right for you.
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